Reviving Mini Adventure

[adrian_m]

i'm in for this project!  


on Jan 20th, 2005, 7:25am, kevglass wrote:

Oh.. also. The code is currently designed to support spawning areas to allow personal and group adventures. If you go to the king for instance, ask for a quest he may send you on a mission (by escorting you, or teleporting you) into a seperate area that only your group are in. This way you can have a personal adventure while still being part of the overall world (see Anarchy Online).

you're talking about instance dungeons, right? groups that enter get thier own copy of the dungeon. never played AO, but World of Warcraft has this feature, and it's very popular.
instance dungeons typically have tougher mobs, (requiring a group to take them down), and better loot.

[krypto]

i'm in for this project!  

The Project has been created and as should be aproved in a couple day (See Proposal Forum) then Any who want to join are welcome. All I ask is that everyone uses due diligence in checking files in so that they won't break the build. For now their is probably enough work where everyone can be working in thier own seperate piece of code without too much overlap.

We will also want non developers to join especially if you are artistic, as well as testers.

[Hauk]

Hey Krypto!

I don't see myself as a good java developer(yet!! I'm tied up at the moment) but I'd love to be a tester for you guys. I've done some testing before and enjoyed the experience, so give me a shout when there's some code to be tested!

Count me in!

Hauk

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Daniel_F]

This seems to be a promising project, and would like to be a tester.

Although I'm new I hope I can help.

[krypto]

OK That's it. Now its obvious everyone is "Willing" to help on this project so while we are waiting for the Project to get approved ( should only be a few days ) Lets discuss things the project needs, as well as starting to learn who would like to volunteer for what.

• Development
  
  
  
  • Client
    
  • Server
    
  • Audio System
    
  • Combat System
    
  • Items(weapons/armor/potions) etc.
    
  • HUD
    
  
  
• Resources
  
  
  
  • Audio (midi music and sound effects)
    
  • Backgrounds (for Battle backdrops)
    
  • original Artwork (to replace RPG Maker Stuff)
    
  • Sprites
    
  
  
• Web Presence
  
  
  
  • Website
    
  • Host (to host the website and gameserver)
    
  
  
• Testing
  
  
  
  • Client testing (Extremely Critical Task)
    
  • Editor testing
    
  
  

I myself am mostly experienced in GUI development, so I will probably contribute a as much to the editors and HUD as I can.
My goal is to set up teams for all the different areas of developement, so that once tasks are defined and a team knows what is is working on for a particualar milestone(more on this later) the developer will be free to go off and code his brains out. Planning is going to be critical on a project of this size. Although a 2D rpg may not seem large scale, I feel producing a polished finished version is.

Feel free to add to this list as we go and basically tell me what team you would like to contribute to.
Man that's a long post.

[adrian_m]

some brainstorming:


- database management

- quest system

- seperate login(lobby) and game servers

- seperate "mini" servers to handle various game subsystems...
   - world server
   - combat server
   - quest engine server
   - chat server

- what kind of client/server architecture?

- UI defined using scripting, LUA/XML?

- scripting to allow ui mods, macros?

- how will combat work? old school FF?... or where the user has more control (i'm thinking of Zelda "Link's Awaken" on the old gameboy. anyone ever play that one?)
- personally i like to have more control, not sit back and watch the fight.

- not sure how this is implemented as yet, but would like to see continous zoning, or scrolling when walking through the world, (with instances and dungeons as an exception)

- trade skill engine.



oh, before i forget...

i'd like to be involved in client/server development, as well as the combat system.

[krypto]

- trade skill engine.



oh, before i forget...

i'd like to be involved in client/server development, as well as the combat system.

Duely noted... As fas as the Combat System goes the Original author felt that Combat would basically have to be turn based becuase of network lag. (not to mention needing animations for all possible attacks in 2D) so probably to start we will need to just go for FF style.

As for the Skills System.  We will need to think about that as a piece of the Overall Player Stats. for example:

• Health Points
  
• Defense Points
  
• Experience Points
  
• Money
  
• Special Status(poisoned,slow,sleep,frozen,swift,etc)
  
• Skills
  

Of Course experience is gained over time w/ battles fought ect. As Experience increases new Skills can be learned or skills could be taught(Pay the Shaman to Teach You to Heal) ect....ect...etc...

[krypto]

where is everyone ? :-/

[SpuTTer]

What about combat more similar to Final Fantasy Tactics instead of regular. I find it much more enthralling and it entails more strategy of sorts. Wouldnt be a whole lot harder to do either.

Also, put me down for the website/host if you choose to move away from Kevs site.

I may be down to help with some coding, but I'll wait and see what is left after more anxious people dig in

I think that skill based instead of Class based could be cool, why limit!

In the past I've done: (for combat skills)

Offense (affect % hit)
Defense (affect % evade)
Armor (absorbs % of hit, based on armor worn + any natural)
Damage (inflicts damage, based on weapon + any natural)
Speed (if using ff tactics type engine, or even FF engine, how quickly you move or can attack)
Life/Health
Mana/Magic

Possibly break client down into:

2D and 3D (LWJGL) also

or maybe just LWJGL :O

[kevglass]

Obviously your free to ignore anything I post since I've handed this project over. That said:

----

You really want to get written down what your actually aiming to do and in what order.

Its all very well coming up with tons of ideas (which is great btw ) but as a project you'll need to be pretty focused on getting something playable (to get a user base) before worrying about feature rich worlds and redundant servers.

The best example of this I can think of is the client. There isn't much point starting work on two new clients (say 3D and LWJGL) until you know what structure/features the game needs/wants to present.

It would seem that the biggest points of having a game that can be played and enjoyed from the current state are:

- Improve Tool Support

This is extremely key. Until the tool support is good enough, even if its just the additional of web page manuals on how to use them, you can't get arty folks to get to work.
   * Tile Cutter - Integrate with IDE. Add the ability to specify properties on tiles.
   * Mapper - Make this the central IDE. Add multilayer support (I believe its just two at the moment). Add a framework to support plugin editors.
   * Script Editor - Probably best to assign someone just to rewrite this from scratch. Its uncomfortable and takes a lot of preknowledge to use.
   * NPC Editor - Fresh build, maybe the first test of the IDE plugin architecture. This should support making templates of NPCs/Creatures and then deriving new versions (see Zelda games )

- Combat  

This needs to be resolved quickly. Don't worry about getting it wrong, it can be tuned later on but its such an integral part of the game many other bits will revolve around how you decide its going to work.
   * Combat Engine - consider melee, ranged and magic. What takes place when? What balances the system? What allows you to develop new types of creature as time goes on? What values do you tweak when players complain that X is unfair? How do items affect combat?
   * Networking - How is the combat handled network wise? I'd considered a bunch of options. Maybe the combat opens a new connection to the server which is used solely for this combat phase. Maybe its peer to peer. Maybe combat is just movement like everything else.

- World

At the moment the world consists of one (fairly large) area. This isn't a good test case. It took me ages to get it designed but it was a mistake. A few people need to be assigned (once tool support is better) to start designing some more complete test worlds.
  * Keep it small - build lots of smaller areas all interconnected world cells. Lots of inteaction in a small area. This will allow testers to try every aspect of the world without walking for half an hour
  * A new feature isn't complete until its in the game, 10 times
  * A pseudo complete world will get people interested in playing and looking around. I had college students from all over the US looking and playing about just because there was a world in which they could wander and feel like they were finding stuff.


I'd suggest before you ADD anything, you first resolve what you have. Its much easier to change something once its got people up and understanding than to attempt to add stuff fresh.

Again, only suggestions.

Kev

PS. Re: Options mentioned above:

- Continuous Zoning - the current source is specifically designed without doing this. Network with continuous zoning is pretty darn tricky. It also doesn't lend itself to modularising the server or server redundancy.

- Database - something that needs to be a priority once you know whats going to be stored . Its flat file at the moment because I was trying to work out what to store.

- Lobby Server - I'm not sure where this comes in. Its a MMORPG not a game based server. If you want to chat go to a tavern, sit down and chat.. Or use the global system channel

- An LWJGL client would be great. Personally I don't see the point in a 3D client because there are just so many 3D MMORPG's already. Just an opinion tho.

Coo Long Post.

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[kevglass]

Oh, long post and I forgot to mention. If it would be useful I can put the current game server and client back up so people can wander around and see what its currently like?

Kev

[krypto]

What about combat more similar to Final Fantasy Tactics instead of regular. I find it much more enthralling and it entails more strategy of sorts. Wouldnt be a whole lot harder to do either.

I'm not quite familiar w/ this style... I never played tatics but I thought it was a strategy style fighting. Can you explain further.

Also, put me down for the website/host if you choose to move away from Kevs site.

I may be down to help with some coding, but I'll wait and see what is left after more anxious people dig in

You Rock.   I feel that a polished site will draw non-developer users and hopefully artist types into the community and make for a better finished product.

I think that skill based instead of Class based could be cool, why limit!

I think this is good, but should classes still exist, as sort of a basis for skills...i.e. I am a Mage so I start my Game Life with this much of skill X already, but I can learn more as time goes on?

[krypto]

You really want to get written down what your actually aiming to do and in what order.

Its all very well coming up with tons of ideas (which is great btw Wink) but as a project you'll need to be pretty focused on getting something playable (to get a user base) before worrying about feature rich worlds and redundant servers.

The best example of this I can think of is the client. There isn't much point starting work on two new clients (say 3D and LWJGL) until you know what structure/features the game needs/wants to present.  

I Agree very Strongly with this. Yesterday I sat down and started writing down a project roadmap/release plan.. I set milestones/releases along with features for each to be implemented. I will post this here so people can help me finalize it. First we should just get the server back up and things working again.


- Improve Tool Support  

This is extremely key. Until the tool support is good enough, even if its just the additional of web page manuals on how to use them, you can't get arty folks to get to work.  
   * Tile Cutter - Integrate with IDE. Add the ability to specify properties on tiles.  
   * Mapper - Make this the central IDE. Add multilayer support (I believe its just two at the moment). Add a framework to support plugin editors.
   * Script Editor - Probably best to assign someone just to rewrite this from scratch. Its uncomfortable and takes a lot of preknowledge to use.
   * NPC Editor - Fresh build, maybe the first test of the IDE plugin architecture. This should support making templates of NPCs/Creatures and then deriving new versions (see Zelda games)

Again This is my main objective currently, otherwise nobody will develop content for the game.

• Tile Cutter - What do you mean by properties
  
• Mapper (Multilayer) - My old editor does 5 layers, I will add it.
  
• Script Editor -  Agreed
  
• NPC Editor - similar to my old editor again.
  

Combat

Lets go with simple turn based style to start, (Players Speed affects time betweer turns). That way we at least have something.

I'd suggest before you ADD anything, you first resolve what you have. Its much easier to change something once its got people up and understanding than to attempt to add stuff fresh.

This is going to be key to this projects success. We have a great start thanks to Kevin, but we need to follow through with the basics before we worry about all the bells and whistles.


Oh, long post and I forgot to mention. If it would be useful I can put the current game server and client back up so people can wander around and see what its currently like? Very Helpful as I don't have a machine suitable for hosting at the moment. Kevin...You are a great asset to the community.

[kevglass]

Re: Tile Properties
- Does is slow the player down?
- Does is damage the player?
- Does it animate?
- Does it move?

Kev

[krypto]

Re: Tile Properties
1. Does is slow the player down?
2. Does is damage the player?
3. Does it animate?
4. Does it move?
Kev

1. I priviously handled this with a seperate layer on map for collision detection,  but I think I like your way better. I will probobly just add a numeric value to the tile... 0 = no impedence, -1 slow a little, -2 slow a lot, ect.

2. Is damage only occur on collision , i.e. what if  I step on this tile and stand there?

3. Do we want animated tiles, or seperatly placed "Sprites" that sit on top of a tile.

4. I thought tiles had a set position in the world...Can you elaborate.


While we are discussing tiles I wanted to ask you a few things. One thing I noticed that is different about your mechanism of tiling is that tile sizes doesn't need to be the same, i.e. all tiles are not 26 X 16 or 32 X 32 ... At first I thought this was a pain., but now I'm starting to see its advantages. Do you think map designers will find it difficult to draw maps with different shaped tiles?

p.s. here is a link to my start at a Roadmap:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~krypto/tasklist.html

[kevglass]

In theory laminos is playable again from:

http://laminos.newdawnsoftware.com/index.php?page=play

Server: bob.newdawnsoftware.com

I haven't been able to try it from work tho . All old accounts still exist.

Kev

[krypto]

In theory laminos is playable again from:

http://laminos.newdawnsoftware.com/index.php?page=play

Server: bob.newdawnsoftware.com

I haven't been able to try it from work tho . All old accounts still exist.

Kev

Thanks Kev.. As I've said before, You have been very helpful. Temporary site is up at
http://www.frontiernet.net/~krypto/

Hopefully sputter will have access to the cvs soon so he can build a newer and more up to date one.

[kevglass]

Task list looks good. Good idea to make the first step a small(ish) one.

2. Is damage only occur on collision , i.e. what if  I step on this tile and stand there?

A very good question   I was thinking lava squares in Zelda, stand there and slowly get burnt to death..

3. Do we want animated tiles, or seperatly placed "Sprites" that sit on top of a tile.

Flowing rivers was the use case I had in mind. I don't see it as much fun putting down a sprite for every bit of river flow. Though I suppose you could do some palette cycling. Essentially large areas of animation would be a pain a simple sprites.

4. I thought tiles had a set position in the world...Can you elaborate.

More for effect.. jiggling treetops, tiles that move down one pixels as you walk on them (rope bridge?). That sort of thing.

While we are discussing tiles I wanted to ask you a few things. One thing I noticed that is different about your mechanism of tiling is that tile sizes doesn't need to be the same, i.e. all tiles are not 26 X 16 or 32 X 32 ... At first I thought this was a pain., but now I'm starting to see its advantages. Do you think map designers will find it difficult to draw maps with different shaped tiles?

In Mini Adventure the large tiles are simply reduced to smaller tiles for collision and stuff but it makes building the world much easier. When I want a standard edge to a cliff I just dump one.. I don't have to build one out of smaller tiles every time. Maybe it would be just as good to have a "brush" palette in the map designer. I used it more for handling large map design rather than anything else.

Kev

[kevglass]

JoC, who just connected.. and to the rest of you. You need to register a user first.

Kev

[krypto]

A very good question   I was thinking lava squares in Zelda, stand there and slowly get burnt to death..

Me Too....

Flowing rivers was the use case I had in mind. I don't see it as much fun putting down a sprite for every bit of river flow. Though I suppose you could do some palette cycling. Essentially large areas of animation would be a pain a simple sprites.

This makes sense, how hard do you feel this would be to add w/ current architecture of tiles/ Client?

More for effect.. jiggling treetops, tiles that move down one pixels as you walk on them (rope bridge?). That sort of thing.

This Sounds Hard

In Mini Adventure the large tiles are simply reduced to smaller tiles for collision and stuff but it makes building the world much easier. When I want a standard edge to a cliff I just dump one.. I don't have to build one out of smaller tiles every time. Maybe it would be just as good to have a "brush" palette in the map designer. I used it more for handling large map design rather than anything else.

Kev

I think we'll leave it as it is then , no since making things to hard on ourselves.


Oh Yeah.. Heres the somewhat improved screenshot for the tile editor.

[kevglass]

Yeah, I checked it out earlier.. looks v. v. nice. I can't wait to see where you guys go with this...

Damn project still isn't approved!

Kev

[krypto]

It should be approved any Day, minute,second Now.
I'm anxious too. I hope you realize Kevin that you are welcome to dabble in the code on the occasion that you have time to code but not enough to code an entire game... How long is that anyways. About 20 minutes or So.

[kevglass]

20 minutes! Thats two games!

Seriously tho, I hope as a community project everyone gets a chance to have a play and build something really great. That of course includes me

At the moment tho I'm more than happy just to focus on what I'm doing and offer as much support as I can.

Kev

[krypto]

And your support is greatly appreciated. Now that I think about it, how do you get time to code when your always answering my questions.?

[kevglass]

2 computers - 2 hands  

Kev

[krypto]

Updated Task List Here:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~krypto/tasklist.html

[krypto]

Kevin's commments on the Tools earlier spawned some thoughts. I have included screenshots of an editor from my last project. Some of the features kevin wanted existed in those.

Map Editor:
http://www.frontiernet.net/~krypto/kme1.png

NPC Editor:
http://www.frontiernet.net/~krypto/kme2.png

Item Editor:
http://www.frontiernet.net/~krypto/kme3.png

[kevglass]

Ah ha, items.. now that makes me think. Allowing items to be dropped is an interesting issue network wise. You get into all sorts of handshakes about who managed to pick up the object first etc..

One solution is to support only

- Recieving objects from NPCs
- Static containers that contain objects
- Passing objects between players
- Destroying objects in your backpack.

This should support everything but prevents you having to deal with the irritating bits.

Kev

[krypto]

Ah ha, items.. now that makes me think. Allowing items to be dropped is an interesting issue network wise. You get into all sorts of handshakes about who managed to pick up the object first etc..

One solution is to support only

- Recieving objects from NPCs
- Static containers that contain objects
- Passing objects between players
- Destroying objects in your backpack.

This should support everything but prevents you having to deal with the irritating bits.

Kev

So, My Editor that allows for item placement should be paired down to allow only item "Template" Creation for instances to be used in Scripts???

BTW ... do the screenshots I posted inspire any ideas?

[Matzon]

dropped items is easy - do like GuildWars, the server assigns the item to a specific user. The problem is to decide who gets it if you're not in an instanced zone (propably the best thing to do is to select a random member of the party that slayed the monster). Problem is sniper parties...